"I feel every adversity you go through in life that brings you closer to God is a blessing" — Marvin Wilson

Marvin Wilson put himself through college and now sets his sights on law school. He studies on his laptop in his room at Park Crescent Healthcare and Rehab in East Orange.Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger

EAST ORANGE — For someone in middle age, it’s never easy to go back to school.

The students are decades younger. The technology is foreign. And between work and family, the obstacles between getting to class and doing homework have grown more complex.

For Marvin Wilson, going back to school should have been impossible.

Paralyzed by a severe stroke at age 32, Wilson can barely move his hands or speak, never mind crack a book or ask a question.

So it was remarkable when he got an associate’s degree in paralegal studies from Brookdale Community College. More so, when he graduated in 2005 from Ramapo College with a bachelor’s degree in law and society.

But Wilson, now 54, isn’t stopping there. Earlier this month he took his LSAT’s — a second time, this time to improve on his previous score in the mid-140s. The top possible score is 180.

"I could apply to some law schools now with the scores I have, but I retook the LSAT to hopefully improve my score enough for CUNY (Law School)."

The City University of New York focuses on "Law in the Service of Human Needs," and that’s where Wilson — who plans to advocate for the disabled — wants to be.

"If I am lucky enough to go down that path, I will be open to any opportunity to serve my fellow citizens," Wilson said.

A former supply clerk for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Bronx native was athletic and had no serious health problems.

He woke one morning and headed to the bathroom to wash up when he felt faint and blacked out.

"I was told the aneurism was at the base of my brain," he said.

Doctors called it a ‘Cerebral Vascular Accident’ — a stroke — that robbed Wilson of most of his mobility.

He was in a coma for three days and in a semi-coma for six to seven months.

"The only things I could move were my eyelids to blink," he said. "I knew what was going on around me, but it seemed surreal."

Now he can move his arms and legs slightly. He operates his wheelchair by using the motions of his head and he navigates his laptop with two fingers on his right hand.

"None of my doctors have been able to tell me why," Wilson said of the stroke. "I did not have high blood pressure, nor did I smoke. I was told though, had I not been an athlete, the stroke may have been fatal."

But Wilson, who has never married and has no children, said he never got depressed or asked "why me?"

"I feel every adversity you go through in life that brings you closer to God is a blessing," he said, adding, "Since total use of my limbs are limited now, and I was blessed to have retained my mind, I decided to use it to go as far as I can."

Since his stroke, Wilson has lived in several facilities throughout New Jersey where he has undergone rehabilitation therapy. He moved to the Park Crescent Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in East Orange in May 2006. His only close relative — his mother — lives in a nursing home in Brooklyn, making visits between the two difficult.

Within seven years of his stroke, Wilson was ready to tackle his education.

Those who have met him since — from doctors to nurses to teachers — say the most remarkable thing about him isn’t his disability, but his mettle.

"I’ve never seen someone that determined. Especially someone facing odds like that," said Gabriel Sebbag, the chief administrator of Park Crescent, which on any given day houses about 190 patients from the elderly to the recently discharged, to long-term residents like Wilson.

Perhaps the most important person Wilson has met on his journey was a lawyer and professor at Brookdale. He had planned to study business, but Barbara Gonos changed his mind.

"(She) was so passionate about the law it became infectious," he said. "I subsequently changed my major to Paralegal Studies. She, along with her husband, have become friends and mentors to me."

Gonos said it is Wilson who is the inspiration.

Marvin Wilson put himself through college and now sets his sights on law school. He studies on his laptop in his room at Park Crescent Healthcare and Rehab in East Orange.Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger

"Everything that I thought Marvin couldn’t do, he did," she said. "It destroyed any stereotype I had about people with disabilities."

In terms of the legal profession, Wilson’s speech impediment could make courtroom arguments difficult. Gonos said that’s not a major concern.

"To have a lawyer who can’t talk, that’s not the worst thing in the world," she joked, but added, "Most lawyers aren’t in the courtroom. Most lawyers are in an office doing paperwork."

Gonos points out that text-to-voice technology is also making huge advances. Moreover, she says, Wilson has knocked down nearly every obstacle in his path so far.

"That’s what I learned about Marvin and people with severe disabilities," she said. "They’re not the limiting factor, we are."

When asked what advice he would give to others confined to a wheelchair, Wilson, perhaps already thinking like a lawyer, rejected the premise.

"I do not consider myself confined by or to anything," he said. "Disability is not a curtain call. It is not over until God says it is over. Yes, you do have to choose a different path to get where you want to go, and it may be more time consuming than an able-bodied person, but so what."